In a binary search tree that takes a simple object.....when creating the getter and setter methods for the left, right, and parent. do I a do a null pointer? as in this=this or do I create the object in each method? Code bellow...

This is my code:

 public void setParent(Person parent) {
  parent = new Person( parent.getName(), parent.getWeight());

//or is the parent supposed to be a null pointer ????

This is the code it came from:

 public void setParent(Node parent) {
  this.parent = parent;
 }

Their code takes a node from the node class...my set parent is taking a person object from my person class.....